Hansard

No one can doubt that we live in troubled and difficult times, and no one, no matter our political divisions, can fail to pause today and remember that, whatever we are debating, the UK has passed a terrible milestone this week, with 100,000 deaths. All of us must feel that, although, of course, not as much as those who will grieve for a long time. All of us must regret what has happened. All of us must work together to temper the lethal force of this pandemic in every way that we can, and that is what we are all trying to do.

I will start my contribution with two quotes. Yesterday, on “Good Morning Scotland”, somebody said:

“NHS Scotland is doing a tremendous job, as is NHS Wales, Northern Ireland and England ... The supply”—

of vaccine—

“has been lumpy, and is the limiting factor on deployment by NHS Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

On Sunday, somebody else, speaking on UK television, said:

“this is a complicated manufacturing process. We are getting it in as quickly as we can from the two manufacturers ... The NHS, across the whole of the UK, is supplying it and getting it into people’s arms as people quickly as it comes in.”

The first of those quotes is from the UK Tory minister with responsibility for vaccine deployment, Nadhim Zahawi; the second is from the Tory UK health minister, Matt Hancock. I want to thank those two Tories for saying those two things. It is simply to be regretted that the Tories in Scotland are not saying them, too. For they, like their colleagues south of the border, should be paying tribute, at a time of so many deaths, to all those who are involved in the monumental task of ensuring that every citizen who wants the vaccine can receive it in a well-ordered and carefully planned risk-based programme, recommended by an independent and respected UK body, which is being treated by all four Governments of the UK as a matter of the greatest urgency and is being delivered with skill and dedication by the NHS in the four countries. However, alas, they are instead doing something else.

Yesterday, I was told about a GP surgery in my constituency that has just completed the vaccination of all of its over-80s. When the next supply of vaccine arrives, it will start on the over-70s, and those who are housebound are getting home visits. However, the surgery faces a problem: the difficulty of doing all that given the constant phone calls, often from vulnerable people who have heard some members in this chamber creating doubts about whether those people will get what they so keenly want: a vaccination that starts them back on the road to normality. Sadly, that distress and worry arises not from the programme but from the discreditable approach that we have just heard.

I like and respect Mr Cameron, which is one of the reasons why I think that his speech was not worthy of him. Whether they know it or not, he and his less reputable colleagues are causing the distress and, in so doing, they are not producing a better vaccination programme but interfering with the delivery of the existing one.

No one is saying that a programme of this size in any country—Scotland or anywhere else—will be without difficulty, or that a programme of such complexity could not and should not be constantly improved. Mass vaccination centres are up and running in a number of places and are being joined rapidly by others. Rural and island boards are looking at innovative ways of vaccinating whole communities. Of course, there can and should be scrutiny and suggestion from this chamber, but there should not be a desperate politicisation of such a crucial matter by a sleekit, anonymous Tory Government source in London, aided, abetted and amplified, alas, by an unprincipled Tory party here.

At any time, this Government will act in the best interests of Scotland’s people and work tirelessly to ensure their health, wellbeing and livelihoods. However, there are times when that obligation lies not just on Government, but on the whole Parliament. This is one of those times and it is essential that every member measures up to it.

Data that was published today shows that NHS Scotland is now exceeding January’s target of 100,000 doses a week. That is rising every week and, yesterday, more than 24,000 first doses were delivered. Numbers have risen by 41 per cent in the past week—about the same rise as south of the border. However, it is not a competition; it is a crusade in which we should be united and not divided.

The Scottish NHS has vaccinated 233,681 front-line health and social care workers, exceeding the target of 230,000 that was set by the health boards. More than 95 per cent of older care home residents have also been vaccinated. By early February, all residents and staff in care homes for older adults, front-line health and social care workers and those who are aged 80 or over and living in the community, will have received their first dose. By early March, everyone in Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation priority groups 1 to 5—more than 1.1 million people—will have had the first dose. By May, more than half of the adult population of Scotland will have received protection. That will account for more than 90 per cent of preventable mortality from Covid-19 in Scotland. We have already vaccinated a higher percentage of our population than most other countries worldwide, yet still the pace continues to grow and it will go on growing.

Sadly, the pandemic is not the only issue that the country has to deal with. The pandemic is an external crisis, but another crisis has been inflicted on us by the Tory UK Government. The UK Tory insistence, backed by the Scottish Tories, on a reckless decision to press on with the end of the transition period for leaving the EU, even in the face of that unprecedented economic, social and health crisis, has caused, is causing and will cause untold economic and social damage.

Less than four weeks since the new trading arrangements came into force, problems are multiplying and spreading. The UK Government calls those teething troubles and tries to pin the blame on anybody but itself, but the truth is that the hard Brexit that it chose has produced a hard outcome that will be permanent.

It is likely that those who export and import will get more used to the paperwork, increased costs and delays, but the UK is now a third country and will remain so; therefore, the trading arrangements will be those for a third country. That is not an accident; the Tories took a deliberate decision to leave the single market, which we should remember is seven times the size of the UK. The restrictions, bureaucracy and paperwork are a result of that decision.

A necessary flow of essential labour into Scotland will be massively reduced and even post-pandemic tourist travel will be harder. There is now no access to some essential law enforcement tools that keep us safe. Our young people are shut out of the life-changing experiences that Erasmus brought. There are cuts to our agricultural budget; an end to moneys that helped to develop communities, build infrastructure and support innovation; and the extravagant promises that were made to our fishing industry have been completely hollow. All that has happened not just during a pandemic but in the midst of the worst of the pandemic.

It has been hard enough to respond to the pandemic in economic terms, with the UK Government insisting on undermining devolution. Nonetheless, since March, we have committed more than £1.2 billion to support our economic recovery, on top of the almost £3 billion of funding that we provide in direct business support. Our programme for government includes radical and wide-ranging policies to help people, businesses and communities recover and rebuild. The Government is doing precisely what the motion calls for; we are tackling the pandemic, investing in economic recovery, delivering a vaccination programme that is saving lives and helping Scotland to return to some form of normality over the coming months.

Why did the Tories lodge the motion? They did so because of the Tory fear of democracy. Since the very start of the Brexit process, the voice of the people of Scotland and its elected representatives has been ignored. That experience leaves me in no doubt that, when the pandemic subsides, our voice will be ignored again when decisions are being made about how to build forward.

I believe—in my view, this is an unremarkable belief—that it is for the people of Scotland to decide what country and economy should be built following the pandemic. That is why, if, in the next parliamentary session, there is a majority for an independence referendum that would allow us to become a normal small state within Europe, living in harmony and equity with our neighbours, the Parliament has an absolute right to take the matter forward. That is democracy. No matter what I think of the current UK Government, I do not think that, in the end, after the pandemic, it will wish to take not just the Scottish Government but the voters of Scotland to court to try to cancel out their democratically expressed wishes. The actions of the Tories in bringing this debate to the chamber are not very creditable, but I do not think that even they would wish to be seen to be going that far.

I move the amendment in my name, confident that democracy and decency should, and will, prevail.

I move amendment S5M-23958.3, to leave out from “planning” to end and insert:

“the people of Scotland have the right to choose their own future and to escape the disastrous hard Brexit that Boris Johnson and the UK Conservative Administration are imposing on them; notes that the Scottish Government paused work on independence to focus on the pandemic in contrast to the UK Government, which recklessly pursued Brexit and ended the transition period at the worst possible time; supports the Scottish Government’s decision to follow the JCVI priority list for the first phase of the vaccination programme, which has been drawn up by independent experts to provide the greatest possible protection against preventable mortality from COVID-19; agrees that it is for the people of Scotland to decide what sort of country and economy should be built following the pandemic, and that therefore, should there be a majority in the next Parliament for an independence referendum after the pandemic, there can be no justification whatsoever to deny people in Scotland their democratic rights.”